Eggs and Riding

Greetings Earthlings!  How are your various summers progressing?  We are back, firmly ensconced in the GPNW.  While it is warm and somewhat humid here, we are not under the heat dome the rest of the country endures.  Happy we are about that.

And now, for this week's cooking tip.  I really like boiled eggs, almost as much as I hate peeling them.  It doesn't matter what I do, what technique, what additive in the water, my boiled eggs end up looking like pock marked victims of savage attacks because they will not peel.  Some of them make me so angry they go in the trash.  How sad is that?  Now, life is better.  Take your recalcitrant egg, and using a serrated knife, firmly cut it in half along its length.

Then, take a spoon and extract the boiled egg much as one would do with an avocado half.  Life is better now.  There may be an errant piece of shell, but I'd rather pick those up than try to peel another boiled egg.

When not struggling with breakfast, we've been riding out in the Carnation Valley.  This is the site of the former golf course that was saved from the developers.  I guess this is an improvement.  The impressive allee of trees has been cut down, so as not to shade the corn.  I miss the trees.

Those two big brown piles in the back are what is left of the trees.

On a different day, we upped the mileage and did a whopping 30 miles.  It was enough.  The peripheral body parts are still complaining bitterly about being back on a bicycle.  This is the always lovely Sikes Lake.

One of the flower fields that provides bouquets for the tourists at Pike Place Market.

Another ride was the route around Lake Sammamish.  The jury is still out on that.  There are a lot of cars, they make us jangly what with all of the noise.  The advantage is that we can ride from the RV.  It was a clear enough day for the mountain to be out.

Reservists on their way to the Yakima Training Center.  These guys have a long drive ahead of them on top of their Stryker vehicles.

Today we took the mountain bikes out on a local ride.  It's a non-technical rolling hill ride through the woods.  It's hard to see, but that is a stream flowing through a tiny creek bed.  The camera does not handle water, light and shade all at the same time very well.

It was a good ride and a pleasant day.  Jim has had yet another pesky birthday.  He is now into his seventieth year.   It's always amazing to me that we got this old.

Life NW RV Resort

While we were in Harrisburg last time, we stayed at Life NW RV Resort and hotel complex.  In the past I have written some terrible reviews of this place.  The first two photos are screen prints of their website's photos, which were taken with a fish eye lens.  Sites are much closer together than they appear.
Anyway, the park is under new management, and these people are much nicer than the previous regime.  They are pleasant and cooperative.  The construction has completed and the new church is complete.  Services are held Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings, so there is not too much traffic.

We were on a different site than the one we usually get that has the power pole that pops.  I don't know if it still does that.  Anyway, for this stay power was good.  Sites are not level, they tip to one side.  The concrete is still breaking, it looks a little sad.  Interior roads are paved.  Verizon 4G generally shows 3 bars and it's tolerable.  Restrooms and laundry are kept clean.  This is not a destination park, we're there for its proximity to Elite.
The biggest knock on the park remains the water.  It is just unbearable.   We put water in the Brita reservoir one night, and by the following morning it still had not run through the filter.  This is water that has already passed through a carbon block filter.  So, if you go, bring drinking water.

It's very rural out there.  They were haying behind the park, making dust.

Doing Time in Harrisburg

Le Sigh….. The refrigerator installation has not been without its challenges.  We had planned to be at Peterson Caterpillar this morning to have the inconsequential oil leak diagnosed and fixed.  However, we are back in Elite’s yard.  The refrigerator needs to be plugged in to an inverted outlet when we are off shore power. It was tripping off after five minutes of being plugged in, and unfortunately taking out the TV and satellite system, because they’re all on the same circuit.

We do have a new refrigerator – it’s a Samsung French door, with the freezer down.  It’s not the model I would have chosen, but the guys at Elite feel it’s very durable for the RV life, and this is what they install.



How, you wonder, do such big things come into your RV?  It’s done with a fork lift through the window they removed.  They waited for us to go breakfast and then they did the swap.  I guess there are some things the RV owner should not witness.



Here is Jim, emptying the cooler for what we hope will be the last time.  Once the issues with the frig are sorted, this is going over the side.  We only used it for defrosting the old freezer.



Yesterday we set out for Corvalis to walk around.  However, we were diverted to Les Schwab due to a tire going flat.  We had picked up a nail. If you’re in their service area, these guys are good.  We were a drop in, they took the truck back right away and fixed it for $14. They’re a good thing.



We’ve been watching the Tour de France.  Yesterday the route went up and down both sides of the Col de Grand Colombier.  It’s an amazing road.



If you’re not racing the TdF, this is what you’ll see from the top after you ride up the hill.



In local news, there is a hay fire in Junction City.  $1.5 million dollars worth of freshly harvested hay has gone up in smoke.  Apparently there was spontaneous combustion in a pile of debris, and high winds pushed the fire toward the product.  They’re saying it will burn for days.  The wind direction has changed and we can now smell the smoke in Harrisburg.



There are plum trees along the railroad tracks on the edge of Elite’s yard.  They’re tiny, but they are really good.



So, the old 15 amp breaker has been swapped out with a new one.  The refrigerator is running off the inverted plug, and so far it’s holding.  Sometimes I wonder if Jim and I are cut out to own a Class A.  Yes, it’s a luxurious condo with wheels, but there are just so many systems, all of which seem to want to break and bedevil us.  We’ve quit believing that there will ever come a time when nothing is broken.  To paraphrase Nina of WheelingIt – if 80% is working, we’re 100% happy.

Back to Oregon

We're in Harrisburg.  Yesterday morning we departed Issaquah and went to the Armitage Campground in Coburg, which is a Lane County Park.  We were extremely fortunate in that all of the terrible traffic was northbound.  It's still a long drive.  One of the best parts is (are?) the Nisqually Flats.  It's a swampy area that is really pretty.  Notice the mountains way far out in the distance.

Armitage is sited along the McKenzie River.  There is a boat launch into the river and a short little trail around the park.  Our next door neighbors were Dave and Sue and their most excellent poodle, Lewis.  Zero pictures were taken by anyone while sitting out talking.  Lewis is not fond of children, especially wheeled children.  He stuck his head under Dave's arm so he would not have to see the scary kids.  I'm sorry I missed that one.  It was a lovely evening and we're looking forward to seeing them again.

Today we headed north to the RV park near Elite.  Tomorrow morning we're going in for the new refrigerator and associated cabinet work.  It's a two day process.  We still have mixed feelings about losing the gas absorption box, but it ain't working!  With any luck there will be pictures of that.

Snails

Well, it's been since the 4th since I've posted.  Mostly because we've done zippity doo-dah all of anything that was interesting, but also because of recent current events.  I remember when I was in grade school (back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, and dirt was new) we would have "current events" in class.  We all hated it, the subject seemed so dry and far removed from anything important.  I wonder if they still do that in schools.  It seems like one should at least allude to the recent deaths, but what is there to say?  It's bad to shoot people?  I don't know.  One wonders how did we get here.  I believe I shall use the rest of our current allotment of data on cat videos.

We have been walking briskly daily.  The weather has not been very good for riding.  The streets are wet, or it's raining, and I hate getting my bike dirty.

There has been snail watching.

This is a terrible picture.  My camera seems to have managed to have not focused on anything.  But there he goes, crossing the bike/walk trail, heading towards the freeway.  Good luck to him.

Tomorrow we're heading south for Oregon.  We'll be having a new refrigerator installed.  Ours will no longer hold temperature consistently, and I'm tired of replacing parts on it.  So, there will be a new frost free residential unit in its stead.  We're spending the weekend down there.  Monday we're visiting Peterson Caterpillar about a slow oil leak in the engine, and having the cooling hoses replaced.  Since engine access is through the floor in the bedroom and bedroom closet, all clothing must be removed from the closet.  This will be such a giant pain in the butt.  The prospect of the logistics of this are making me somewhat irritable.

That's it, that's all I have to report.

The Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July Earthlings!  I hope your holiday has been a happy one.  Ours was very pleasant in the damp Issaquah micro-climate.
We hiked the Tradition Plateau trail system today since the streets were wet.  Today's key learning is to stay off the Wetlands Trail.  There's a small, stagnant pond up there that is a mosquito breeding pond.  I have several very impressive welts from being bitten.

There are bears in the area.  Most of the stumps and many trees have been clawed by bruins looking for tasty bugs.  We were very happy not to see them.

We saw these critters on a ride the other day.  The goats are almost as tall as the ponies.

When doing the 5k urban walk, we pass by a magnolia tree in bloom.  It's an excellent specimen.

I guess it's obvious that I have virtually nothing to blog about.  Tomorrow should be dry, so it'll be a bicycling day.  Maybe there will be pictures of cows!